Everything you need to know about BigCommerce: Capabilities and Benefits

Grow your business online with BigCommerce, a powerful all-in-one e-commerce platform for businesses of all sizes.

BigCommerce

Type

E-commerce 

Founded

2009

Website

Technology / Everything you need to know about BigCommerce: Cap

E-commerce is growing exponentially yearly, with many businesses realizing online selling power.

An e-commerce platform forms the foundation of any online business, enabling key capabilities required to sell products and run operations online effectively.

BigCommerce is an e-commerce platform, preferred by over 60,000 online businesses globally.

BigCommerce has gained immense popularity among businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. It merges enterprise-grade functionalities with robust performance to help SMBs and large enterprises maximize online sales.

Key Highlights

  • BigCommerce is a leading SaaS e-commerce platform that allows businesses to create online stores and sell products.
  • It offers numerous capabilities like shopping carts, payment processing, inventory management, website building, and SEO optimization.
  • Benefits include flexibility, omnichannel selling, great customer experiences, and enterprise-grade scalability.
  • Works on a SaaS model with customizable store setup, product management, and seamless payments.
  • Used widely from SMBs to large enterprises across industries.

What is BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is a leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) e-commerce platform that provides online stores and selling capabilities to businesses of all sizes.

Founded in 2009, it has grown rapidly to power over 60,000 online stores across 120 countries.

Overview and History of the E-commerce Platform

BigCommerce has experienced rapid growth, becoming one of the fastest-growing e-commerce platforms in the industry.

BigCommerce was founded by Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper in Sydney in 2009. It started as Interspire before rebranding to BigCommerce. 

After early success in Australia, they entered the US market setting up headquarters in Austin, Texas.

Over the last decade, BigCommerce has exponentially grown its merchant and revenue base globally by providing an enterprise-grade yet affordable e-commerce platform.

It went public in 2020 and continues to roll out new capabilities catering to businesses across industries.

BigCommerce Features and Capabilities

BigCommerce comes packed with all the tools online businesses need to build effective ecommerce stores and scale their operations. Some key features include:

Shopping cart and order management

It provides a native shopping cart and checkout functionality for efficient order processing. Merchants can easily manage orders, print invoices, and shipping labels from a central dashboard.

Inventory management

The platform enables tracking stock levels in real-time.

Businesses can set up auto inventory updates, and alerts for low stock, and get actionable analytics on sales trends and order histories.

BigCommerce-features.png

Payment processing

BigCommerce seamlessly integrates with over 40 top payment gateways and providers globally .

This provides flexibility to accept payments via cards, digital wallets, bank transfers, etc. in various currencies.

Website Builder

The intuitive drag-and-drop site builder makes it easy for anyone to create beautiful online stores without coding skills. Responsive templates ensure optimal viewing across devices.

SEO optimization

It comes SEO-optimized out-of-the-box with customizable URLs, metadata editing, rich snippets, and more. The optimized technical architecture ensures stores get indexed faster.

Benefits of the BigCommerce e-commerce solution

BigCommerce comes with an array of benefits that enable merchants across segments and sizes to achieve ecommerce success.

Flexibility and scalability

The platform is designed to scale easily with business growth while providing the flexibility to customize experiences.

B2B ecommerce capabilities

BigCommerce meets the complex needs of B2B businesses allowing customer groups, custom pricing per segment, role-based access, and self-service account management.

It provides powerful merchandising and promotions management.

The APIs easily integrate with marketing automation platforms for segmented campaigns.

Omnichannel selling options

Sell across multiple online and offline channels from one unified dashboard for greater reach.

Online store

Customize online stores with responsive themes, promotions, and personalization for engaging shopping experiences.

Social selling

Enable selling via Facebook and Instagram shops. Messenger chatbots can also be integrated for personalized selling.

Marketplace integrations

Expand reach by selling on major marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart via native integrations that sync inventory, orders, etc.

Customer experience focused

Deliver personalized, optimized customer experiences across touchpoints to drive repeat purchases and loyalty.

Mobile commerce optimization

Fully responsive stores and tailored mobile checkout ensure excellent experiences on mobile. Progressive web apps can also be built for app-like experiences.

Abandoned cart savings

Built-in abandoned cart savers help capture lost sales via timely reminders and offers sent to shoppers.

Analytics and Reporting

Actionable insights into customer behavior and sales performance through analytics empower informed decisions.

How BigCommerce works?

BigCommerce is a cloud-based SaaS platform that provides the required infrastructure and tools to set up ecommerce stores with minimal hassles.

SaaS model and infrastructure

It works on a software-as-a-service subscription model rather than traditional on-premise software.

This eliminates the need for merchants to invest in hosting servers or complex IT infrastructure.

The cloud-based servers provide flexibility to scale bandwidth and storage as per traffic needs.

The global CDN ensures fast page load speeds from anywhere. Regular updates and security patches are also handled seamlessly.

How to build and customize BigCommerce for your business needs

Merchants can easily set up customized stores as per their brand and business requirements in a few steps.

Choosing a plan

Firstly, merchants select one of the affordable monthly subscription plans based on current scale and future projections. The enterprise plan is also available for high-volume businesses.

Designing the online store

Next, an online store template can be customized with logos, images, colors, themes, and layout using the intuitive drag-and-drop designer. No coding skills are needed.

setting-up-a-store (1).png

Managing products

Products can be effortlessly uploaded with descriptions, images, pricing, and categorization for easy discoverability. Bulk upload makes it easy to add hundreds of SKUs.

Configuring payments

Various payment methods like cards, digital wallets, bank transfers, etc. can be activated from the admin based on target geographies and customer preferences. Taxes and shipping charges are also set up.

BigCommerce Pricing plans

Before committing to a paid plan, you can explore BigCommerce's features with a free 15-day trial, during which you can test drive BigCommerce and build your site. You don't need a credit card to sign up.

BigCommerce pricing starts from just $29.95/month, with the plans, Standard, Plus, Pro, and Enterprise, scaling up based on your business needs.

Image: BigCommerce Pricing Plan
Source: SCScloud

Case studies

Thousands of SMBs and enterprise brands across industries have achieved tremendous ecommerce success with BigCommerce.

SMB success stories

Skullcandy, a leading audio brand, powered its rapid international expansion by leveraging BigCommerce.

The flexibility to customize experiences across markets led to 2X revenue growth in Europe.

Allbirds, a D2C footwear startup brand, relied on scalable inventory and order management capabilities to grow 50% YoY without inventory backlogs. The single-page checkout increased conversion rates.

Enterprise use cases

Toyota Parts Center built a B2B portal on BigCommerce to expand to small-medium auto repair shops.

The DIY site builder published fast without needing developers.

GE Appliances migrated multiple brand sites to BigCommerce for unified product/inventory management .

The PWA Studio integration provided app-like mobile experiences leading to 39% conversions.

WWE Shop efficiently handles 60K orders on event days by leveraging enterprise-grade security, uptime, and the capacity of BigCommerce. Peak sales touch $1M driven by promotions engine.

Conclusion

BigCommerce is a featured-packed ecommerce platform built to help SMBs and enterprises sell across channels and deliver personalized shopping experiences.

Key takeaways

Some key takeaways from this guide on BigCommerce are:

  • It's an affordable yet enterprise-grade SaaS solution for building online stores
  • Comes packed with all essential storefront, order, and inventory management capabilities
  • Flexible to scale from just $29.95/month with unlimited products
  • Enables omnichannel selling via marketplaces, social and POS integrations
  • Delivers great mobile and shopping experiences driving growth & loyalty
  • Powers thousands of stores transacting over $20+ billion annually
  • Suitable for both tech-savvy merchants as well as starters with DIY site builder

Next steps for getting started

Ready to start selling online with BigCommerce? Explore what more can you do with your e-commerce implementation.

Book a discovery call with us →

With capabilities to scale flexibly and deliver rich customer experiences, BigCommerce is undoubtedly a leading choice for building successful ecommerce brands.

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